LibriVox recording of The First Book of Maccabees, from the Douay-Rheims Version. Read by Sam Stinson.

1 Maccabees is an apocryphal/deuterocanonical book written by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, probably about 100 BC. It is included in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons. Protestants, Jews, and some others regard it as generally reliable historically, but not a part of Scripture. The setting of the book is about a century after the conquest of Judea by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, after Alexander's empire has been divided so that Judea was part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. It tells how the Greek ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to suppress the practice of basic Jewish religious law, resulting in a Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule. The book covers the whole of the revolt, from 175 to 134 BC, highlighting how the salvation of the Jewish people in this crisis came from God through Mattathias' family, particularly his sons, Judas Maccabeus, Jonathan Maccabaeus, and Simon Maccabaeus, and his grandson, John Hyrcanus. The doctrine expressed in the book reflects traditional Jewish teaching, without later doctrines found, for example, in 2 Maccabees.

(Summary by Wikipedia, modified by Sam Stinson)

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This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: Douay-Rheims Version
Date: 2008-08-10
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; literature; audiobook; audio book; bible; douay-rheims; apocrypha; deuterocanon; 1 maccabees

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Alfassa - - December 16, 2011
Subject: Poor version
The verbal audio recorded reading of his book is not of any sort of sophisticated quality. It is almost comical at some points. It would be wotrh the time for a re-read by a serious reader who understands the nature of what he is reading. I hope they re-record it.

Reviewer: JHKetterer - - January 8, 2011
Subject: Is this the only version?
This is a quality recording, but the reader seems to treat it like a joke. Is there a version where someone reads this seriously? I know it isn't Bible canon, but this is for historical posterity, right?